


Relationship Status

by dralexreid



Series: Dr Piper Bishop [14]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dralexreid/pseuds/dralexreid
Summary: Derek tries to investigate how Piper really feels about Drew compared to Spencer during their case.
Relationships: Dr Spencer Reid/Dr Piper Bishop
Series: Dr Piper Bishop [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972852
Kudos: 29





	Relationship Status

Derek had two missions. One: catching this serial killer. Two: making sure the two BAU geniuses got together. Part one of mission 2 was assessing external threats. In the ultimate non-creepiest of ways, Spencer had Piper’s routine memorised. Woke up before dawn. Got some paperwork done. Shower. Toast for breakfast. Coffee from the nearest shop. Arrived at the BAU no later than 8 am. He’d convinced Reid to catch a later train and for these lovebirds, he was willing to get to work an hour early. But he didn’t know that Piper equally had all of their schedules memorised. So she was definitely surprised when Reid didn’t show up until 8:45 and Derek showed up at 7:30 am.

“What are you doing here so early?”

“Woke up early to have a run but it was too cold out.”

“How early, like 8?”

“6:30”

“AM?” Piper was shocked. “Derek, the last time we shared a room, you smashed your alarm clock for waking you up at 7:30.”

“Yeah, well, people change. Speaking of change, a little birdie told me you’ve been up at night over Detective Lisbon. Really, Pipes? Florida?” Piper sighed, plopping into her seat.

“I’m going to kill Garcia,” she muttered darkly.

“C'mon, baby. Talk to me.”

“Shut up," she said, slapping his arm. "And for the record, he’s from Michigan. He’s putting in for a transfer next week anyway.”

“Interesting. Anywhere in particular? D.C. might be cozy.” Derek laughed.

“First of all, you make everything sound gross and second of all, he doesn’t get to pick.” He grinned sharply.

“Right, but you’d like him to move to DC, amirite?” She sighed.

“Believe it or not, Derek, you’re wrong.” Piper hastily straightened her pile of paperwork and headed to Hotch’s office.

“Hold it.” Piper groaned and twisted on her heel.

“What?” She exasperated.

“I thought things were good, what happened?” Piper slammed her files on the desk. 

“He can’t talk to me without putting his foot in his mouth.” She ran her tongue over her lips and glanced around the room.

“Like literally or-”

“Of course not literally. He just always stammers and I used to think it was cute that he was kind of nervous, but we’ve talked over the phone 5 times now, and I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to date a guy who’s too nervous to talk to me and if he’s never comfortable with me then I’m going to be uncomfortable the whole time,” she explained, clearly upset. "And I already feel uncomfortable enough considering we've never gone on an actual date."

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“I dunno. The transfer has nothing to do with me. Florida just sucks.”

“Amen.” She scoffed.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but what do you think?”

“Sorry, what was that?” He pulled at his finger.

“Never mind, I’ll just ask Rossi.” Laughing, Derek pulled her back.

“Relax. Just trust your gut. If you don’t feel comfortable, walk away.”

“Really?” Derek nodded, desperately controlling himself. “Thanks, ma-”

“Don’t you have to get your files to Hotch?”

“Oh, shrap. Thanks.” He double pumped the air at her retreating figure before pulling out his cell to tell Spence.

* * *

“We’re going to LA. These are victims 6 and 7, well parts of them anyway.” Piper shuddered.

“Clean cuts too. Like it’s a…”

“Machete?” Rossi offered.

“I was gonna say a katana, but if you want to be boring,” Piper retorted.

“The first 5 were lone victims. He’s getting bolder. And more vicious,” Reid noted.

“Tell LAPD we can be there by 9:30.”

On the jet, they took their usual spots after discussing victimology. Piper took the couch, reading her book on Feudal Japan. Reid took the back window reading his book on psycholinguistics. Rossi sat chatting with Hotch and Derek listened to music. Assessing the situation, Derek got up and moved over to Piper. “What’s wrong, Derek?”

“Nothing, I just needed um.. relationship advice.”

“From me?”

“Rossi had three wives, Hotch is a robot and Emily is in a loving relationship with a cat. And Reid’s only advice is that I don’t need advice.”

“Well, you are the woman-whisperer right?”

“Don’t mock me, just help please.” Groaning, Piper put her book away. 

“What’s the problem?”

“I have this childhood friend.” Piper’s face wrinkled. “Hear me out, seriously.” Piper mocked a heaving sigh as she straightened, flashing him a grin.

“Kay, what’s the deal?”

“We’re still really good friends but I see her as more than that. What do I do?”

“Well, do you see yourselves being together?”

“I mean, I’d like to.”

“Do you see her on a regular basis professionally?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the harm? Just tell her.”

“Wait, why’d you ask if we see each other professionally?”

“Because it’s like if you’re in a band and you decide to date your bandmate. It’s all well until something goes wrong. You lose focus on which strings you’re meant to be playing and if you break up, the band feels the same tension and eventually breaks up.”

“Huh. Thanks, though. For the advice.” Piper shot him a thumbs up and returned to her book.

* * *

Piper leaned against the FBI bike loaned to her outside the crime scene, glancing at her watch. The sooner this case was over, the sooner she could take her leave of absence. A few days vacation might be the cure to her throbbing shoulder. Finally, an SUV pulled up in front of her and Spencer and Derek came out bickering. “Should have listened to me.” 

“It wouldn’t have saved that much time, Reid. Let it go.” 

“The interchange between the 405 and the 101 freeways are consistently rated the worst interchanges in the entire world.” 

“Why do you know that?” 

“It’s a government report.” 

“So what?” 

“So you work for the government. What, you don’t read the reports?”

“On traffic patterns in a city 2, 500 miles from where I live?” 

“2, 295 miles.” 

“Don’t make me smack you in front of all these people.” Derek turned to see Piper with a raised eyebrow leaned against a bike. He never understood how the bureau managed to pull her a bike in every state. “How long did you have to wait for us?”

“20 minutes, Derek. Why’d you take the interchange between the 405 and the 101 freeways? It’d have been easier to take the-”

“Stop it, both of you.” They were interrupted by the lead detective from the LAPD.

“Detective Brady.”

“I’m Agent Morgan, this is Dr Reid and Dr Bishop.” Spencer waved and Piper held a hand out to shake his.

“Where’s the rest of your team?”

“In an SUV behind us,” Derek explained.

“Yeah, stuck in traffic.” Morgan stared at Reid, struggling to choose between smacking him or pushing him into oncoming traffic. 

“So, you had two more victims last night?” Piper asked, struggling to hide her laugh.

“They were discovered a little after 3:30 by a cleaning crew finishing up in the building.” 

“So that’s 7 victims over the past 2 weeks,” Derek shook his head. 

“Bodies are in the alley. What’s left of them.” 

“Same victimology?"

"We don’t have a positive ID on either one of them yet, but the clothing fits. You really think this is only one guy, huh?”

“The level of overkill suggests an unsub in a psychotic break. Multiple unsubs in violent psychotic breaks operating in the exact same location are exceedingly unlikely.” The detective stared at Reid.

“Essentially, it’s rare for two people to have the same psychosis. So you’re probably dealing with one guy.” Piper squeezed Spencer’s shoulder as she motioned for the detective to start showing them the crime scene. Derek couldn’t help smiling at the two of them. That smile faded as they saw the horrifying remnants of two people brutally murdered. After examining the scene, Morgan walked away to call Hotch.

“Do you know that a domestic cat loose in a normal neighbourhood is the equivalent of a small-scale ecological disaster?” Reid asked out of nowhere. 

“Excuse me?” The detective looked perplexed as did Piper.

“Where are you going with this?”

“They’ll kill anything they can– bugs, rodents, birds, other cats, small dogs if possible. Anything.” 

“That got something to do with this?” 

“An unsub in a violent psychotic break is worse.”

* * *

Spencer sat behind Hotch in the SUV, trying to reach Piper to update her on the geographical area. _“Yeah, Spence.”_ Her voice always managed to calm his nerves.

“Hotch and Rossi figured out the geographical centre of the killings. It’s a building complex, a lot of them single room occupancy. High turnover rate.”

_“So he’s transient?”_

“Yeah. You got any theories?”

_“Right now, my best guess is a traumatic event triggered the psychosis, probably violent in nature. But until we know who our victims are, no clue what it could be. Where are you guys headed?”_

“To our next victim’s house.”

_“House?”_

“Yeah, the unsub visited the house of the 8th victim.”

_“So he’s getting bolder.”_

“Yeah, Derek’s trying to get a hold of the detective. Are you not at the precinct?”

_“Nah, I got hungry. I’m getting churros. You need me?”_

_Always,_ he thought. “I’ll call you if we do.”

 _“Okay. Be safe.”_ Derek made a motion cutting his hand across his neck.

“Hey, Pipes, stay on the call, I’m gonna put you on speaker.”

 _“Okie doke.”_ Piper paid for the churro she was waiting for and stood by the bike. 

“So we finally found the link between victims,” Derek said, switching off his cell. “All gangbangers. Guy named Glen Hill. Street name is Reaper. No survivors. 6 dead, 4 inside, 2 outside. Hill’s still missing.”

“So he’s devolving,” Reid noted. “We should ask Garcia to look at recent gang violence in LA. This amount of overkill isn’t just for cleaning up the streets. 

_“Like Batman?”_

“Like who?” Derek’s voice went up an octave.

_“You know. Batman. Gangbanger kills his dad. He becomes Batman and starts putting away criminals using… does no-one here watch movies?”_

“No, Pipes, we just generally call unsubs professional archetypes.”

_“Please, Batman is a vigilante, same thing. Don’t ruin this for me, Derek. Bye. Be safe.”_

* * *

Piper sat, perched on a desk next to Spencer as she watched Morgan and the officers bring in John McHale. “It’s funny how average they all look.”

“You were right though.” She scoffed.

“PTSD can be a bitch.” She carded a hand through her hair. 

“At least you get to go on leave once we get back.”

“It’s only 2 weeks and I’ll be in DC the whole time. Just please visit so I don’t go completely crazy.”

“Promise.” Piper held out her pinky and Spencer laughed.

“Really?” He wrapped his pinky around hers. “Promise.”

“Good. If you break it, I have the right to take that pinky.”

“On whose authority, may I ask?”

“Garcia’s. You can fight with her over the solemnity of pinky promises all day. Just let me know beforehand so I can make popcorn.” She stopped laughing as Hotch, Rossi and Emily walked in with half a dozen boxes. “You guys find the weapon?”

“Didn’t need to. Mr McHale is a very sick young man.”

“I mean his girlfriend was raped by a gang in front of him. I wouldn’t want to survive that. Can’t even imagine what he’s going through,” Piper said softly, looking through the boxes to see detailed replications of the crime scenes in art.

“He killed 8 men,” Brady argued.

“While in psychosis,” Hotch defended. “It doesn’t forgive him, but it’s a mitigating factor.”

“He’s still in it. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s done,” Piper told Hotch, “You’re gonna have to shake him pretty hard right?”

“Yeah, Bishop, you’ve dealt with PTSD patients. Any input?”

“Nothing you probably don’t already know. It’ll probably turn ugly, but mounting pressure’s the way to go. Multiple people, surround him, suffocate him with questions until his mental block breaks. The only way to deal with the psychosis.”

“You’re suggesting we emotionally break him?” Emily asked, shocked at her response.

“No. I’m suggesting you emotionally _overwhelm_ him. He will get violent though. Once he breaks, use the smoothest voice you’ve got, Rossi.”

“How smooth?”

“Elvis Presley smooth.”

“Don’t mention his name to me. Reminds me of my third wife,” he muttered, making Hotch smile as they went into the interrogation room.

“You have any idea what weapon he used?” JJ asked Reid.

“Well, to cut that cleanly, it’s thin but strong, not like a rapier,” Piper started. “Maybe a short sword but those are hard to find in LA and a straight blade isn’t any good. Straight blades are better used for sparring and rapiers can be flimsy, like fencing swords. The best choice would be something like a katana or a scimitar. Their slightly curved which gives a better angle. Plus, scimitars are often sold in pairs which is probably why the crimes were so brutal. Hard to fight against one, never mind both.”

“I don’t wanna know why you know that.” JJ patted Piper’s shoulder and walked off. Piper stared at the drawings. 

“He’s really talented, despite the whole gory part of it. I might’ve even read it if I found it in a library. Be a little horrified but then put it away. How do you put reality away?”

“I think Garcia reads his books.”

“Yeah, what’s it called?”

“Blue.”

“Maybe I’ll get a copy for my mantle.”

“Your what?”

“Hmm? I found his phone, look.” She passed it to Reid absentmindedly. “The more we delve, the worse I feel for this guy.” Spencer stared at her turning the phone over in his gloved hand. Only she would feel this bad for a guy that murdered over a dozen gangbangers. Smiling softly, Reid opened McHale’s phone.

“He’s called the same number 11 times in the past week.”

“Try it. Maybe they can tell us something.” He dialled the number and held it out between them. Piper’s head swivelled towards the ringtone blaring from another box. “This is Vickie’s phone. The girlfriend. Jesus. He doesn’t even know she’s-”

“It’s severer than we thought.”

“Yeah, well. This evidence is all catalogued and LAPD’s all over it so…” Piper paused, drumming her hands on a box. “There’s a comic-book store a block away. You in?” Spencer nodded, smiling.

* * *

Piper stared out the window, seated in front of Hotch who was trying to dial someone, probably Haley. She knew better than to ask. Spencer sat adjacent to her, flipping through the comic Piper’d bought in front of JJ. “That his comic book?”

“Yeah, it’s called Blue.” Piper turned her head at the sound of his voice. “It’s about a girl who thinks she’s a real human being, right? But it turns out she’s a robot that was built by her uncle.”

“So it’s Pinocchio?” 

“Yeah, it is like Pinocchio, only, uh, set in a high school in outer space.” 

“Oh, by the way, what happened to Vickie's phone?” 

“Phone?” 

“The one that Johnny kept calling, with her message on it?” 

“Oh, we gave them both back to him. You know, I couldn’t imagine having just a voice message left of someone. I think I’d never stop listening to it.” 

“Yeah, it’s sad. Hey, did you know that Carlo Lorenzini, the guy that wrote Pinocchio, was said to be obsessed with the human nose? As a matter of fact, Pinocchio wasn’t even the first character–”

“-interesting," JJ steered away. "Coffee?” 

“I’m all right. Thank you, though, for asking.” Piper moved into JJ’s original seat to talk to him.

“Do you think it’s weird I knew all that stuff about swords?”

“Nah, we read a lot. Those guys don’t. I’m not sure Derek know what a book is.”

“Oh, he’d read just as much as you if he thought it would help him get a girl.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“Something Drew did a while ago. Kinda stuck with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He…he hung up on me when I was talking to him about samurais. I dunno, it’s probably nothing right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Spencer said simply, eyes glued to the book.

“Right.” Piper leaned back. “Derek said the weirdest thing yesterday. Asked me for advice about a girl. Said they were good friends but he wanted more. Did he mention anything to you?”

“Uhh… Yeah. No, yeah he did. An umm…childhood friend right?”

“Right. Well, if you know, then it’s cool. It just doesn’t seem like him.”

“What did you say?”

“I said so long as you don’t work with her professionally, what’s the harm? If anything, keeping it in might make the relationship worse.” Piper suddenly got up and returned to her seat, gazing out the window, knuckles resting on her chin.


End file.
